JTPednaud's Comments

I have always loved his work. Been following it for awhile now. I've seen some of it up close before and I believe he once dropped me an email on the subject of conjoined twins over at www.thehumanmarvels.com

Mandy Sellars was documented some time ago in a TLC special I consulted on. At that time her condition was undiagnosed and I must say that I am surprised by the Proteus positive result. Her deformity is not really typical of the condition and I was quite confident she suffered from Milroy’s Disease as Fanny Mills before her.

His handler contacted me at the time to inform me that Oliver is currently housed by Primarily Primates. He is close to sixty years old and, while he did suffer a mild stroke a couple years back, he is pretty good shape for a retired bloke.

Some factual errors, but most simply due to often repeated incorrect original source material. However, a big error here is the fact that Lazarus Colloredo and Joannes Baptista Colloredo were not conjoined twins. Their case is an example of parasitic twinning.

Also, considering Siam no longer exists, the term 'Siamese Twin' is not only politically incorrect and medically inappropriate, it's now also a physical impossibility.

I've seen this story floating around for awhile now, but I think it's time to set a few things straight.

Jyoti Amge is not 'The Smallest Girl in the World', as the blogosphere reports.

The original article indicates she is the smallest girl in India. But even that is highly suspect. At 35 inches in height, she is already taller than most adult primordial dwarfs. Typically, and historically, little people with achondroplasia are not the smallest of people.

The use of the word 'girl' is also misleading and in no way official. Official records pertaining to height are not made until adulthood. One could easily claim the a newborn baby girl is 'The Smallest GIRL in the World.

If we are going by 'girl', I can think of five young ladies smaller than Jyoti Amge, right off the top of my head. Kenadie Jourdin-Bromley immediately comes to mind. She was featured on Neatorama some time ago.

As the resident teratologist here at Neatorama, I just wanted to point out a couple of things out here.

First, these are indeed conjoined twins, specifically the condition is often referred to as Janus Syndrome by laypersons. This 'Janus' condition may be a form of conjoined twin where the fertilised egg does not completely split in half. But more recently, it has been attributed to disrupted embryo growth due to a protein called "sonic hedgehog" which causes excessive widening of the face.

This condition is not the same as having two sentient heads. It is likely that is is a case of a parasitic twining - one face being functional, the other being capable of rudimentary movement.

Such twining has occurred before and has entered pop culture. Tom Waits's Poor Edward is based on a similar account:

The infant could survive into adulthood. Chinese Chang Tzu Ping survived well into adulthood.

As for how common birth defects are globally, well, we are all mutations of an ideal. But the last figures I saw indicated that roughly 3% of all infant born are born with a recognizable defect. Of those 1% are 'serious' and of that 1% roughly one third survive for more than a year.

Rarely, in cases of parasitic twins, does the subject have control over the vestigial limbs of their sibling. There have been rare cases of control, but when only an extra limb or two are present. Francesco Lentini, for example, exhibited some control over a third leg.

In this case, however, control is highly unlikely as the twin is nearly complete. A head or brain likely exists somewhere in the torso, thus the limbs are not hardwired to the central nervous system of the subject.

This newest extreme case of parasitic twins, while unusual, is not unheard of. In the 90’s as a man by the name of Rudy Santos was exhibited as ‘Octoman’ in the Philippines.

I see a multitude of problems with this as well. I see people taking the signs less seriously and I doubt those who roll through stop signs fail to see the sign in the first place. Seems like a waste of time and money if this was intended as a serious campaign. The money would have been better spent in patrolling and driving re-education.